Building panels such as walls and ceilings may be decorated with ornaments such as cornices, covings, picture rails, ceiling roses, skirting boards and timber mouldings that cover unsightly joints or otherwise provide decoration.
These types of ornaments are particularly common in older houses under restoration, or as reproductions that give a new house a traditional appearance.
Ornaments such as cornices are typically made of plaster, which makes them difficult to remove for the purposes of replacement, and difficult to install without the assistance of a tradesman or skilled home handyman.
This problem has been partly addressed in British Patent 2283044 where a cornice is provided that can be installed by way of a right-angle bracket mountable to a wall and/or ceiling, to which is fitted a cornice that fits snugly into flanged ends of the bracket arms. However, the cornice bracket of British Patent 2283044 has a number of deficiencies. Firstly, the cornice when mounted does not completely cover the bracket ends. Secondly, given that adhesive is used to facilitate firm mounting of the cornice to the bracket, the cornice is not readily removable from the bracket. This lack of reusability is compounded by a requirement that frangible locating flanges on the bracket arms must be permanently removed to perfect assembly. Also, this right-angle bracket requires that an existing cornice be removed before the cornice can be mounted.
In Australian Patent 638604, a renovating cornice is provided that is shaped to be superimposed over an existing cornice to thereby remove the need to remove the existing cornice. The renovating cornice is glued or otherwise tightly superimposed over the existing cornice.